Bundesliga in America: HR home game discusses the Eintracht idea

DIt was once again a funny program on Hessischer Rundfunk. Every Monday you can watch it if you don’t have anything else to do after eleven o’clock at night. It’s called “Home Game” and is supposed to be a sports program, but it is the home radio of Frankfurter Eintracht. And because HR, as a public broadcaster, hardly gets any money from advertising and compulsory contributions, it did it very cleverly.

How do you knit a cheap sports show? Very easy. You sit down in an Ebbelwei pub with a folkloristic touch, sit down a few fans at the tables (“nice that you’re here”), and at the main table in the middle the presenter and presenter, both in a good mood, exchange ideas with two or three people -Reporters or other local experts on a single topic. You guessed it: unity. There is constant laughter and jokes, and at regular intervals tablets with important theses are held up to the camera.

Eintracht – that’s what they’re waiting for over there

For example: “Eintracht vs. Dortmund 2028 in the USA.” With a period, not a question mark. The Eintracht against BVB in New York, for example, is of course a huge topic that can easily fill a whole hour. And that’s also something the Americans are eagerly waiting for. Today the New York Red Bulls can’t even fill their mini stadium when Messi comes with Inter Miami. But unity – that’s what they’re waiting for over there.

By 2028 it should be clear that they will not only send their Chiefs and Colts to Frankfurt, as has just happened, where hundreds of thousands of German and European fans will be at their feet, but that they will also turn into a football boot.

Maybe by then my hometown club, SV Darmstadt 98, will be ready to play its much-noticed Bundesliga game against Heidenheim in Las Vegas, for the sake of international marketing. Or Frankfurt against Darmstadt – the Americans can see how they behave in the stands. Not like the wimpy fans in football who grill so peacefully around the stadium and exude a good mood and have absolutely nothing to do with a German fan audience with its Bengalos and its aggressive behavior.

Yes, from the German football culture, strictly guarded at high-security games and only controlled with difficulty by hundreds of police officers, they can learn a lesson over there. 2028.